'We truly feel how much you loved him': Vigil honors officer Justin Hare

TUCUMCARI — About 200 people held up candles and cellphones in Tucumcari to pay respects to fallen New Mexico State Police officer Justin Hare.

State Police vehicles put on their lights as the sun set on the High Plains community Wednesday evening.

“We truly feel how much you loved him,” Hare’s girlfriend Daizaare Quintana told the crowd.

Among the people to come to the vigil outside NMSP’s District 9 office was retired State Police officer Wes Cox.

Hare was one of the first people Cox met when he and his wife, Kelly Nuñez, moved to Logan a couple of years ago.

“Wes immediately made a beeline for the State Police officer when he moved there. (He) saw him at an event and that’s the first person he went out of his way to meet like it was family,” Nuñez said. “Right from the get, they had bonded.”

Cox said the vigil allowed people in the community to share a bond.

“I think it helps everybody cope with it a little bit and support each other,” he said.

On Friday, police say Jaremy Smith fatally shot Hare and stole his vehicle when the officer stopped to offer Smith help with a flat tire along Interstate 40, near Tucumcari.

Smith, a South Carolina man thought to be headed to Albuquerque, removed the officer from his own SUV and crashed the vehicle, fleeing on foot, setting off a manhunt.

Three days later, Bernalillo County deputies shot and injured Smith in Southwest Albuquerque. A gas station clerk had seen Smith walking and called 911.

‘It’s still hard to believe he is gone’

About 50 miles northwest of where the fatal shooting took place is Hare’s hometown of Logan, where everything from store fronts to telephone poles were decked out in black, gray and blue ribbons and balloons.

Residents are still trying to process what happened.

“I didn’t think it was true,” Logan Senior Center head cook Rita Gutierrez said when she heard the news. “When I found out it was him, it was heartbreaking.

“It’s still hard to believe he is gone. It is just like a dream.”

Gutierrez said she knew Hare his whole life.

“To me he was a good kid,” she said. “... Well-behaved, well-mannered, disciplined.”

When he joined State Police, Gutierrez said she was proud of him.

He not only kept the community safe, but he would help with tasks like mowing the yard, she said.

“Anytime I needed help, he told me to just call because I was right there, but he was good helping everybody,” Gutierrez said.

Logan Food Market employee Marla Job said she moved to Logan six or seven years ago, and that’s when she met Hare.

She said he was riding in his patrol car when he waved and said, “Hello, you’re new.”

“You could tell he was a great guy, a good cop,” Job said.

‘How do I forgive him?’

Logan residents said they were relieved when Smith was captured.

Gutierrez said she is glad he is off the streets, not only for herself, but for the families of Hare and Phonesia Machado-Fore, whose BMW Smith was in when Hare pulled up to him.

Machado-Fore’s body was found in a rural part of South Carolina on Friday night.

“It’s sad, it shouldn’t have happened to either one of them,” Gutierrez said.

Gutierrez said she hopes to take things day-by-day as she moves forward without her friend.

Others like Job are doing some soul searching as they try to make sense of everything.

“It was uncalled for and, as a Christian, I am finding a hard time praying for the individual who did this, and that breaks my heart,” Job said. “How do you pray for somebody who did such heinous crimes?

“I’ve talked to my pastor. I’ve talked to my husband and it’s like ‘How do I do this?’ ‘How do I forgive him?’”

14+ photos from Logan and Tucumcari